Why I Write

As a budding writer I worried that my story has been told before, that somebody else could write it better, that maybe this is not my craft. Nothing can be further from the truth: nobody can tell your story, because it is your responsibility. If you don’t write it, nobody else will, and you have to bear the regret of never allowing it to see the light. I don’t write because I am a writer; I write because I have something to say. A deluge of images and memories, so thick I have trouble keeping up, brings back places, people and times: the surreal feeling of walking on Broadway for the first time on a freezing January morning, the ghostly halo of Niagara Falls covered in ice at night, the skyline of Manhattan with the Twin Towers still etched into my brain, picking pumpkins in the rain and laughing, knee deep in mud, the space shuttle Columbia disaster, the Curiosity landing, the time before personal computers. I reached the time of life when one starts looking back on the events one had been privileged to experience, both personal and public. We all contribute our small share to the changes in the world, we matter, the people we love matter, as do complete strangers. We shape this world together, one moment at a time, and the future is always of our own choosing, always within our grasp. I write because I lived, loved, learned, hurt, and I have so much to say!